Description: This panel will discuss the topics and themes associated with the ISMAR exhibition Beyond the Interface. The interface is the boundary across which information is exchanged, causing a transformation in one or both sides of that boundary. Interfaces have always been a site of control, hidden in plain view: symbolic, social or technological. They facilitate and shape the dialogue that happens between different tribes from religions, scientific or philosophical backgrounds; between components of computer systems; or between machines and living beings. This panel will discuss how the exhibited works disrupt, critique or bypass and lifts the veil on contemporary interfaces and this means to them and us.

TrakMark: How to Benchmark AR/MR Geometric Registration and Tracking Methods

In the research fields of Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR), tracking and geometric registration methods are still one of the most important topics. The tracking research field is highly active, and every year, “Tracking” session is scheduled in the ISMAR. The “TrakMark” working group (WG) was established in 2009, as a lower branch of the Special Interest Group on Mixed Reality (SIG-MR), the Virtual Reality Society of Japan (VRSJ), to create the benchmark of AR/MR geometric registration and tracking methods, named “TrakMark”, that permits objective evaluation and comparison of diverse registration and tracking methods.

In 2009, we held a special session in ISMAR 2009 to launch the TrakMark activity worldwide, where we provided a kind of a policy speech. After that, we held the following four workshops.

Based on the discussion in these workshops, we have created the benchmark test scheme, which is the release candidate version.

In the first half of this session, we will make a presentation of the report as a compilation of these works. This report will include not only the introduction of Trakmark and the data sets we published but also the indicators of the benchmark and the trial results of the benchmark. Furthermore, we will introduce the uniform software environment, named “Casper Cartridge” for benchmarking, and the benchmark standardization activity in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24/WG 9.

In the second half of this session, we will run a panel discussion about the current issue and the future of TrakMark.

Description: This panel looks at alternative approaches to understanding creative digital industries, marketing and power, and focuses on the boundary between cultural and financial, governmental and political economies. The speakers will examine a range of tactical strategies and disruptive approaches as part of an evaluation of the economic hierarchies in contemporary society and creative production. This discourse will present recent examples that critique traditional approaches to participation within market driven systems, with a particular focus on networked culture, mixed realities, social media, ubiquitous computing, and mass surveillance.

Description: This panel will discuss notions of value and digital processes within a framework that seeks to readdress aesthetics and what rethinking interface aesthetics actually means within a networked and cultural context. Within digital culture, aesthetics has traditionally been orientated around the interface as object/material. In a post Internet mixed reality society, networked social exchanges of data have disrupted the notion of objective/concrete aesthetics, repositioning it to be now both embedded in and constructed by a collective cultural value system. This panel will explore these ideas within a historical aesthetic framework, in order to attempt to reimagine what aesthetics actually are and how they fit into contemporary society.

Commercially available optical see-through displays are just around the corner. Applications will be very much on the rise. With the years of research effort, a rich array of micro-sized sensors, the advent of low cost RGBD cameras and advances in computer vision technology, what are the major research issues for developing user interactions for augmented reality systems? Technology advances and commercialization are now allowing many more researchers to investigate augmented reality without needing the expertise/effort to develop their own low-level technology (hardware, software, and UI techniques). There is still much research required to determine the most effective ways to use this technology for a variety of tasks. Today there is not even a single interaction technique specific to AR that is widely accepted by a mass audience. This panel will explore what issues have been solved and (if there are any) those left to be investigated for user interfaces for augmented reality.

The structure of the panel will be five minutes for each panel member stating their views on the current issues, solved and to be solved. The remainder of the panel will be discussion and Q&A from the floor.